If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty.

If whites bored me, it was because they bored themselves. They seemed to get little fun out of life and were desperately lonely.

The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down.

In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live.

If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty.

Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.

New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been.